Fair Play

by Deeanne Gist

  “Yes. Nefan. And we were in this horrid dungeon downstairs. And he was frightened and upset and—”

  His mercury went straight to the top. “Billy Jack Tate, what the Sam Hill were you doing down there?”

  She placed a hand against her chest. “Don’t you yell at me, Hunter Scott. What was I supposed to do? Leave him down there?”

  “Yes! I would have gone and gotten him. I’d planned to go just as soon as my shift today was over.” Whipping off his cap, he dragged a hand through his hair. “Death and the deuce, but I’ve a mind to paint your back porch red. That’s no place for a lady. I can’t believe Irwin even let you—”

  She shoved him. With both hands and plenty of force. It was so unexpected, he stumbled back.

  “I am sick and tired,” she began, following her shove with a step forward, “of you telling me what I can and can’t do simply because I have functioning mammary glands and you don’t.”

  His jaw dropped in shock.

  “If I want to visit a jail, I’m visiting a jail. If I want to walk every street in Chicago at night, I’m going to walk every street in Chicago at night. If I want to earn wages after I’m married, I’ll earn wages after I’m married. So if you tell me one more time I can’t do something, I’m going to . . . to . . .”

  “Solve it with fisticuffs?” His jaw began to tick. “Because that’s what those of us with superfluous mammary glands do. We roll up our sleeves, curl up our fists, and settle things once and for all.”

  Her eyes burned with fury. “With the way I’m feeling, I just might try it. It sounds wonderfully refreshing.”

  “Easy for you to say. I wouldn’t be allowed to hit back. If you’d ever taken a solid punch in the face or gut, you’d be a bit more particular before you started something you couldn’t finish.”

  “Who says I couldn’t finish?”

  “I say you couldn’t finish. You think you’re so—”

  “Children, children.” Carlisle appeared beside them and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “You’re creating a bit of a scene.”

  The sounds of the fair rushed back. Gondoliers singing in Italian. A bell in one of the towers ringing. The hum of the crowd’s conversation.

  Hunter swept his gaze across the area. Though most were making a wide circle around them, no one was actually gawking.

  He gave Carlisle a hard look. “What do you want?”

  Carlisle raised his hands to either side. “That newsboy outside came to get me. Said he wasn’t sure who he was worried about more. Her or you.”

  His anger, still perilously close to the surface, bubbled over again. “That boy was worried about me? He didn’t think I could handle her?”

  With hands still in the air, Carlisle took a step back. “I’m just repeating what he said to me.”

  “Quit bullying Mr. Carlisle,” Billy said. “He’s simply trying to help.”

  Hunter made a slicing action with his hand. “Not another word, Billy.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she leaned right up to him. “I’ll talk if I want to, when I want to, and how I want to. Lalalalalalalalalala.”

  Sweet mother of all that is good and holy, but he wanted to wring her neck.

  Carlisle bit the insides of his cheeks.

  Spinning around, Hunter stormed back to the Woman’s Building. He wanted to hit something. Kick something. Rip something up and throw it across the lagoon.

  Instead, he stomped up the steps and charged into the building. But it wasn’t big enough to hold his anger. So he simply walked straight from the front door to the back door and out the other side.

  He still couldn’t believe she went down into that jail. He didn’t care how tough she thought she was, she had no business down there whatsoever. None.

  Straight ahead, crowds poured into and out of the mile-long strip that made up the Midway Plaisance. Two-thirds of the way down, the giant Ferris wheel took its occupants on a ride into the sky. Everyone having a wonderful time—while Billy nearly got herself thrown into jail.

  He locked his jaw. If she had wanted that boy out of the pokey, she should have come to him. Like it or not, there were some things in this world that a man had to do. But instead, she’d run headlong into the lion’s den.

  The very thought of her being held in that vile lockup frightened him like nothing before. And that made him mad all over again. Nothing was supposed to frighten him.

  Back home he had the reputation of being the toughest man west of anyplace east. People said he chewed up nails and spit out tacks. That he ate a man for breakfast every morning. That when he bellowed, everybody ran for cover.

  But it was as if Billy had given herself some sort of inoculation against him. She was no more scared of him than the man on the moon. Dad blamed if that girl didn’t defy his every word—and right to his face, no less.

  He worked himself back up into a dirt-pawing, horn-tossing mood. And, boy, did it feel good. Maybe he’d go over to Hull House’s gymnasium and give that punching bag a good workout. He needed to do something.

  The back door opened. He didn’t bother turning around. Just stood at the bottom of the steps in a wide stance. Feminine footfalls descended so slowly, he figured it was an elderly woman. Well, he didn’t want to help any women right now. He didn’t want anything but to be left alone.

  Still, his Southern breeding refused to be suppressed. Turning, he started to ask if he could be of assistance, then stopped cold.

  Billy stood a few steps up, her hand on the railing, her lower lip clamped beneath her teeth. She’d tidied herself up, smoothed her hair, fixed her shirtwaist, and washed her face.

  He couldn’t have cared less. He was still mad as a rained-on rooster, and if she didn’t like it, she could jolly well leave. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry I shoved you.”

  He turned back around. She was apologizing for the wrong thing.

  “I’m sorry I yelled.”

  Still the wrong thing.

  “I’m sorry I made you mad.”

  He opened and closed his fists. “How sorry?”

  A few beats of silence. “Very sorry?”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “Sorry enough not to do stupid things like go to the city jail and almost get yourself thrown in when I had no idea you might end up in there? Sorry for all the anxiety you’d have caused me if you hadn’t returned here before my shift was over, which would have then forced me to go out looking for you? Sorry about the apprehension I’d have had when I couldn’t find you? That sorry?”

  With each question her eyes softened a bit more. For several seconds her answer weighed in the balance.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you,” she said.

  It was the last thing he expected to hear and, at the moment, the last thing he wanted to hear. “Well, you’re wasting your time. I could never love a woman who was so delusional she thought she could be a man.”

  A look of sympathy crossed her features. “I think it’s too late, Hunter. If you weren’t falling in love with me, you wouldn’t be experiencing so much distress over the prospect of not being able to find me. Or over the thought of me visiting the jail. And you wouldn’t kiss me until I was senseless.”

  Despite his valiant effort to hang onto his anger, that last bit loosened his moorings a bit. His kisses did that to her? “It’s not hard to kiss you senseless when you don’t have any sense to begin with.”

  With a slight hint of amusement, she took another step down.

  “Stay away from me.” But he didn’t turn his back on her. Instead, he held those eyes. Those incredible, beautiful, creamy brown eyes.

  Another step.

  “I’m warning you,” he said. “I’m in no mood to be tangled with right now.”

  “I don’t think I’m a man.”

  “No? Then what was all that ‘I’ll do this and I’ll do that’ about?”

  “It was about me trying to explain I’m not some debutante venturing out for the
first time. I’ve been on my own for my entire adult life and I’m used to doing whatever I want without answering to anyone. I’ve fed myself, clothed myself, provided myself with shelter, and put myself through school. All without the help or protection of any man.”

  What kind of parents allowed their daughter to do that? Had she been thrown out of the house? “What about your father? Didn’t he help you along the way?”

  “He told me my mother cried whenever my medical studies were mentioned and he couldn’t in all good conscience furnish me with money for something that upset her so much. So I did it on my own.”

  “How?” The question was out before he could stop himself. He couldn’t imagine how a young miss could make enough money to pay for schooling, books, room, board, and everything else.

  “I waited on tables during the school year,” she said. “In the summers I peddled scales to farmers’ wives and picked berries, then sold them for two cents a quart.”

  He didn’t want to like her. And he definitely didn’t want to respect her. But he knew what it was like to put yourself through school, then set out on your own. He just never imagined a girl having to do so.

  And even if he had, he wouldn’t have imagined being drawn to her. But he was more than drawn to her. And it seemed like she knew it. “I’ll admit to being attracted to you. And even liking you some. But I could never settle down with a woman who thought she could act like a man simply because she’d put herself through school and earned a man’s degree.”

  “I don’t act like a man. Men belch and swear and scratch their armpits.”

  “Don’t split hairs with me. You know what I mean.”

  Looking down, she rubbed the railing with her finger. “So what exactly is it you expect? For me to come running to ask permission for every little thing?”

  “Descending into the depths of that jail is no ‘little’ thing.”

  “I didn’t know that at the time.”

  “Well, I did. And if you’d discussed it with me, I would have told you. I also would have told you I’d planned to go retrieve the boy myself. And as an officer of the law, I have a much better chance than some female who goes in there with a chip on her shoulder because she isn’t taken seriously.”

  She stiffened a bit. “How do you know whether or not I went in there with a chip on my shoulder?”

  He crossed his arms, but said nothing.

  Her posture wilted. “All right, I might have been a tad presumptuous.”

  He could just imagine. It really was a miracle they hadn’t thrown her in.

  “Are you still going to go get Nefan?” She peeked up at him, her expression contrite.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I come?”

  “No.”

  “What if I wait outside?”

  “No.”

  She drew her eyebrows together. “I’ll stay by the horses the whole time. But I’m the one who told Nefan I’d go back for him and I want to be there when he gets out. I . . . I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.”

  He studied her. “Are we setting a precedent here? Because what I hear is you asking permission, then telling me you’re going to do what you want to anyway.”

  “What I hear is that I compromised by asking permission—a huge concession on my part—and you withheld it for no good reason.”

  “It’ll be late. You’ll be outside by yourself. You have no way to protect yourself.”

  “So, give me your gun.”

  “Not likely.”

  With a deep breath, she scanned the rooftops of the Midway’s buildings. The sun had long since started its descent, splashing the sky with oranges and yellows.

  “In the course of my practice,” she said, “I’ve crossed dangerous viaducts after dark. I’ve had a drunken man land at my feet after he hurtled out a saloon door. And I’ve seen a man held up by a ruffian at two in the morning. I think I’m perfectly capable of standing by a couple of horses beside a building swarming with police officers.”

  No wonder she had such a false sense of security. But all it took was one time. Just one.

  “As long as we’re setting precedents,” he said, “let’s just make this clear. Any woman I court—doctor or no doctor—will not ever be out at night on her own without me or someone else for protection.”

  Her fingers drummed the rail. “So you expect me to quit making night calls? To ignore my patients who have emergencies at inconvenient hours?”

  “That’s not what I said. I said I expect you not to go anywhere without me at night.”

  “That’s not practical. What if you aren’t around? What if you’re out chasing bad guys?”

  “Then we’ll hire a driver. But I’m not budging on this point. Take it or leave it.”

  The elevated train rumbled past, then added to the confusion of the Midway by tooting its whistle. She pulled her lips down. She shifted her weight. “I don’t like it.”

  “Not near as much as I dislike the thought of you being out alone at night.”

  Placing two fingers on her forehead, she closed her eyes. When she finally came to a decision, he hadn’t realized how much he’d banked on her making one in his favor.

  “All right,” she sighed.

  His spirits buoyed up.

  “But if I get a call,” she continued with a frown, “and you aren’t at my place and saddled up the minute I’m ready to—”

  He took the remaining two steps between them, grabbed her shoulders, and pressed a quick, hard kiss on her lips. “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

  Then he released her and jogged back inside to make his rounds.

  SALOON, CHICAGO22

  “Behind a roomy oak bar a man in a tidy waistcoat and thin tie poured a beer, his gaze taking Hunter’s measure.”

  CHAPTER

  27

  Keeping his horse at a slow pace, Hunter tried to ignore the foul odor coming from the boy in the saddle with him. Last night Officer Irwin had refused to release Nefan without talking to the judge, and the judge had been home in bed.

  “There was a woman in here earlier asking about this same boy,” Irwin had said. “She tried to palm herself off as a doctor, then a midwife. I had to threaten to throw her in the lockup to get rid of her. And if she ever sets foot in here again, I will. She goes by the name of Tate. You know her?”

  Slipping his hands in his pockets, Hunter nodded. “Yeah, I know her. She works in the building I guard at the fair.”

  Irwin hitched up his trousers. “What is she, the scrubwoman?”

  Hunter rubbed his neck. “She’s the doc. Works in their infirmary.”

  The officer stared at him. “A nurse, you mean?”

  He shook his head. “The doc. She’s been practicing for seven years. Has a diploma on the wall and everything.”

  At least Hunter hadn’t let on he was courting her or he’d have never gotten the boy out.

  Courting her. How had that happened, exactly? He wasn’t sure. And he still didn’t have all his answers—like what she was going to do about her male patients. He took a deep breath. Stepping out with her would be like tying a bobcat with a piece of string. He’d need to go slowly and tread lightly. Very lightly.

  In the meanwhile, her parting kiss last night when he’d escorted her home had been ardent and passionate. He’d make do with that and her promise to not go traipsing around alone at night.

  Nefan shifted in the saddle, but didn’t wake up. Hunter had returned to the jail to fetch him between shifts today and since Billy was working, he’d done so without her.

  The boy had cried in fear when he’d stood before the judge, then in relief when the man had dismissed him and, finally, he’d cried himself to sleep on Hunter’s lap once they’d started home.

  Hunter hadn’t had much interaction with children before now. Had no idea how to talk to them or what to say. With Derry it was easy. He’d give Hunter a fifty-cent answer for a nickel question. But Nefan hadn’t put two words togeth
er since standing before the judge.

  ’Course, he’d never even seen Hunter before today and Hunter’s size had been known to intimidate grown men. It’d do a lot more to a kid who’d been through everything this one had. Still, the boy had gotten on the horse without any fight.

  When they made it to the West Side, instead of taking Nefan home, Hunter took him to Hull House. He knew those women would see to it the boy was scrubbed with soap and doused in kerosene.

  “We’ll take care of him, then let his parents know he’s here.” The young woman who answered the door was Miss Weibel, the effervescent gal who’d first welcomed him, Billy, and Joey into Hull House. She smiled at Nefan, her kind blue eyes wrinkling at the corners, before returning her attention to Hunter. “Thank you for getting him, Mr. Scott. It’s awful the way the children are thrown in those cells.”

  She didn’t know the half of it. Hunter tugged on the rim of his hat. “Thank you, miss. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  He’d barely taken a step back when Nefan launched himself at Hunter.

  “No!” the boy cried. “Don’t leave me! Please!”

  It was the most he’d said since they left the judge’s office.

  Reaching down, Hunter patted his knobby back. “It’s okay, son. Miss Weibel will take good care of you. And then you’ll be home in your own—” He started to say “in your own bed” then remembered the state of the boy’s home and wasn’t sure he even had a bed. “You’ll be home with your parents before nightfall.”

  Instead of being reassured, Nefan locked his arms and ankles around Hunter’s leg and slid down until Hunter’s boot served as a seat cushion.

  Reaching behind his calf, Hunter unfurled the boy’s hands. “Come on, now. It’ll be—”

  “No!” He started crying and pressed himself against Hunter’s leg even tighter.

  Hunter took a step, then tried to gently shake the boy off. For such a puny tyke, he sure had a death grip. The more Hunter and Miss Weibel tried to untangle him, the worse his cries became until they turned into full-blown bellows.